Setting up a 55

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Kris P Bacon

Piranha
MFK Member
May 7, 2018
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GOD's country Arcadia Fl. Chasing mollies
Hello!

I currently only have a 29G (not much room). Found a 55G at the curb, yesterday. It looks in good shape except one of the short sides of the top, plastic rectangle, is missing, bare glass.

The new owner of the house, said it was inside holding water. You can see the evaporation line, it was about 70% full. Right now its on a flat bench on the porch, maybe 20% full to clean it and do a leak check (at least on that much) I hesitate to fully fill it until I reinforce that top side. Any suggestions on what method and material to use?

The plan is to decomission the 29G and use the pump and HOB filter and buy another one and run them both. Also the same hood, I'll make a screen for the gap, with hardware mesh.

I have some comets and a hopolo cat. I'll put the comets in my outdoor pond. I'll keep the hopolo and I'm considering a large mouth bass and some panfish. Any suggestions that can save me $ or grief, are most appreciated.
 
The piece missing isn’t the problem so much as it looks like the center brace is missing as well.
If the silicone looks to be in good condition.
I would suggest that you remove the entire top brace and replace with glass strips about 2 inches wide going from front to back, on each end and in the center.
 
The piece missing isn’t the problem so much as it looks like the center brace is missing as well.
If the silicone looks to be in good condition.
I would suggest that you remove the entire top brace and replace with glass strips about 2 inches wide going from front to back, on each end and in the center.
You mean basically rebuild that top rectangle with glass? What sort of adhesive would you use?
 
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If the silicone between the glass is in good condition, and the small bead on the inside looks to be the problem you can cut the inside bead out and re-seal without having to rebuild the whole tank.

There are lots of videos on YouTube on how to accomplish this.

But,if you have any specific questions we can help you here.

Also there are several different silicone that can be used people have their favorite dependable brands.
I’ve used GE1 with good results.
I’ve also used RTV 108 by Momentive for larger type tanks
 
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The silicone is readily available. Personally I would wait until pet smart had a sale and pick up brand new tank. Think they were only $60 last time the did sale.
 
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